On one of my last trips to Paris,
I spent a day going from cafe to church to bookstore to write.
And the bookstore was none other than the famous Shakespeare and Co.
...which feels a little like a place of respite in Paris.
After a day of struggling with the language,
it's refreshing to step into a world of books in English
and young salespeople speaking it.
Though I know it's not the original location,
it still makes me think of the writers of the 20's who spent time at the original store:
James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Thornton Wilder,
Andre Gide, Gertrude Stein, Man Ray and so many more.
George Whitman (rumored to be the grand-nephew of Walt Whitman)
opened it as Le Mistral in 1951. According to one blogger (Talkin Travel),
before her death, Sylvia Beach, who started the original S.& Co. called George's bookstore,
"the spiritual successor" to her store.
She willed many of her books to him and after her death, he changed the store's name.
~My writing spot~
Shakespeare and Co. is a respite in Paris much the same way
the film 'Midnight in Paris' is a respite to our lives.
A jaded writer gets to travel back in time (in an antique roadster)
and do exactly what so many of us wish we could do:
meet the writers of the 1920's, share a drink with them,
talk writing with them and hear about their lives and their stories.
The film touches on a universal theme of the human condition:
wanting what you can't have.
Though I'm not sure I would want to stay permanently in 1920's Paris,
what I wouldn't give for a visit (or two) and access to those conversations.
And although I myself tend to question writer/director Woody Allen's personal motives
for the gorgeous jewel he has bestowed on his audiences,
he does offer us his fantasy
of the chance to have both that visit and access!
of the chance to have both that visit and access!
(Shakespeare and Company photos copyright: Kirsten Steen)